If you don't consider the fetus a life, and/or you don't believe God has counted it as life, then of course, it's pretty clear that a woman should have a right to choose.I'm not sure why so much ink is wasted on the discussion.

Being able to support or not is not relevant if you think it's human life. Being able to finish college, or avoiding getting fat is not relevant if it's a human life to you. Would I choose to not bring a rat to term in some incumbator if I did not want it, for any reason, sure. It's a rat.

This is why debates, imo, are fruitless. We all have our own basic values.

ETA: Yes, perhaps I understand the abortion discussion centers around whether or not to impose my belief on life on you. Well, it goes to if I think a fetus is life, as an 86 yr old, then I think the gov't should protect 86 yr olds...Does it matter if science says it can live outside the womb or not? My values of the sanctity of life are not based on science. I don't deny the science though.

As Oscar points out, much of the debate is fruitless because we tend to have conflicting presuppositions. Or, more technically, we are operating from different mythos.

One of the enduring elements of the American mythos is the rugged individual. That great American that we all picture ourselves to be who was wise and judicious in choosing his place of birth, careful in his selection of parents, prudent but ambitious in picking out genetic potentials, who changed his own diapers and suckled himself (or mixed the formula), and grew to become a captain of industry: happy, wealthy, and wise.

In short, the self-made man (or woman) who doesn't need anybody and for whom all of society's demands are so many lampreys, leeches, and other assorted parasites sucking away the fruits of his accomplishments as he drives on roads he paved himself in the car he made himself by smelting the iron ore, learning the principles of an internal combustion engine (oops, I mean *inventing* the principles of internal combustion) and so on and so on.

In other words, bullcrap. Any individual American knows that "no person is an island" but we simply do not have any cultural understanding that like it or not we are all in this together!

So what does that have to do with abortion? It comes into play if you have a different mythos, a mythos of community and culture, in which you believe that you have obligations and duties to collective society, and that you benefit and suffer with society whether you want it to be true or not.

So, in the community mythos, the children my wife bore to me are ours not hers. She and I form a community of two, which gave birth to a wider community of five. I have very real obligations to that community, which sometimes feel burdensome, along with tremendous blessings that always obliterate the random burden. In turn we belong to the community of our neighborhood, the local church, the city, state, nation, and world. We can never escape the burdens of membership at any level, and every day we enjoy the benefits.

In this light it is not possible to see a pregnant woman in isolation, or to imagine that "the penis bearer" can be separated from the discussion. If she and he are entrapped in the individualist mythos then they will see themselves that way, more's the pity, as they put themselves beyond not only whatever help may be available in this or other situations, but they detach themselves from the joys of making real contributions to their various communities.

It is particularly difficult to weed out the actual religious perspective because it is usually wound up in the individualist mythos and so distorted beyond recognition. In the Christian perspective the unborn child is not innocent because that implies the very ability to be guilty of something. Rather the child is defenseless, and, while most people do not know this, if you want to hear some real old-fashioned smiting and smoting in the Bible, you will find it is nearly all directed at the powerful who abuse their power at the expense of the defenseless. The simple-minded conclusion here is to blame the woman, as she so obviously has power over the child, but that is balderdash. In this perspective, where "to whom much is given much is expected" the burden is on those in a position to render aid to do so, both to prevent the situation in the first place, and to bolster the woman once it has happened. Ironically, it is typically the poorer churches that tend to "adopt" the unwed expecting mother, while in the wealthier Churches, which are more in the grip of the individualist mythos, the mother may disappear for a few months because she knows full well there will be no material support but there will be a healthy dose of clucking and judgment.

Lets get one thing straight, (if it hasn't been said yet) I doubt anyone who is Pro-life is actually Pro-life. What they are is Pro-human life. When did life start? Well thats about 3000 million years ago or more. Just something to think about. Also about SS and Medicare, they are unsustainable!! I'm worried for the people that are going to be effected by these programs. For SS It would be far better for someone to invest that money themselves, in products they see fit. Like Mutual funds, heck even corporate bonds are better. And the Fica tax used to pay these programs is horrible. The worst kind of tax you could possible have (Regressive). Ugh.

Yes, by "neutered", I mean almost everything of any value was removed from the bill.

As for abortion, I'm a left libertarian and a bit of a feminist as well. So from the libertarian side, my position is that it is not something government has any say in. Then I also hold the left wing position that it's a right that must be protected. Then I'm also a big proponent of women's rights in general, and find gender roles to be arbitrary, contrived, and thereby illogical. I'm also a secularist and an atheist, so religious arguments do nothing but make me roll my eyes.I would also say that being the father may give the man a say over the child, but he gets no say over anything to do with the woman's body. So it's still up to her. That's just one of the biological disadvantages of being a man. Each sex has it ups and downs.

No, SS and medicare are not unsustainable. They currently have a surplus. The government has been borrowing from it though. The other problem is that payroll tax should not stop at a certain income level like it does now, or if it does, it should kick back in again at a higher level. Doing that would fund it indefinitely.

Good article. Actually, I try not to bring religion into anything, and usually stay away from arguments on it. IMHO, religion is a very personal choice, which is accepted by the person, and it's just not up to me to judge or try and tell you what to do. Personally, I think which ever religion you choose, or do not choose, and you truly believe in what your doing, is a good thing, and NOBODY, especially Govts, have the right to tell you differently.Tim

Well...I like the south park creator's opinion on the repubs and dems. He says "I hate conservatives, but I really f@!king hate liberals". That's exactly how I feel, except the other way around. The epitome of what I mean, aside from what A LOT of Ironman has talked about, is regarding these wall street protests. When the major republican nominees for president are asked about it, Romney says "its class warfare" and Herman Cain's reaction was even worse, basically saying the protestors are just jealous. Really? Could you make their argument more trivial and ludicrous than just saying they're only jealous that's why they are camped out for days and sleeping in parks, simply cause they are jealous? What Mr Cain doesn't realize is that its not jealousy- I don't think there's a person alive that would say some people don't deserve more money than others. It's the fact that they are tired of the fact that the masses of the country are at the worst they've been in decades, yet corporate profits for a lot of major businesses are at an all time high and the rich are richer than ever before...

But at the same time, I also see some of the corporate/big business side as well. Years ago a guy who worked for Ford told me that it was the best money he's ever made, and all he did was sit there on a stool and when a part came by, he screwed in some nuts into the part and sent it along the way. He even said that one guy would sit there and read the entire time he was working and doing this, and make over $25 and hour with benefits. Uhh...yea. You can see why big business would rather pay a China man $3 an hour for that. Basically, unions helped workers make a decent living, but eventually they got corrupt just like the big business, and ended up screwing over the very people they were supposed to protect. Still, the oligarchy of corporate America pisses me off more, and it pisses me off even more that the Government let them destroy this country and job base by sending an entire industry elsewhere, so yea, there ya go. And as far as social issues...I'm about as far liberal as you can get. Economically I see myself as more balanced but having to go a little to the left, simply because I'm one of the ones getting screwed

With regards to the protests, some of points being made have an argument, like bank bail-outs, which should be targeted to gov't not corporations. But a lot of these, "demands," are just irrational, things like, "no more greed," taxing investment trades, one sign I saw read, "cuts kill.." I guess in reference to spending cuts which is obviously needed. They need to atleast organize their thoughts, cause this is just nonsense.

Also in a market based economy the people in charge are the consumers, every dollar you spend is a vote, a vote for which company survives and which ones don't. We live in a pluralistic society, where it seems that the problem is us, the dysfunctional voters.

The demands aren't irrational. They may be nebulous and lack specificity, but they are not irrational. It also depends on who you ask. Some people have better answers than others.

Keep in mind, it's not a free market if there are no rules in place to prevent people from cheating. If the market is rigged to favor big business, then nobody else can compete, and the market is not free.

Keep in mind, it's not a free market if there are no rules in place to prevent people from cheating. If the market is rigged to favor big business, then nobody else can compete, and the market is not free.

That's probably the best expression of that idea that I've heard. I'll be quoting you on that.

Example: those who insist on the inviolability of contracts neglect to mention their absolute dependency on an impartial legal system that also has the power to enforce judgments. Usually these are the people who also argue against "big government." I guess all they need is a judicial and a police force.

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